Flipping through war coverage during basketball time-outs today, one thought came to mind: Someone needs to put Dan Rather in a home. He's not only lost his fastball, but his change-up is gone as well. The 'so called March Madness' comment might have been the topper. Plus, ever since election night 2000, Rather has gone into ultra paranoid mode whenever any news comes out, as he tries to not look as ridiculous as he did on that night when he kept saying CBS News would not jump the gun on announcing winners, then jumped the gun 5 minutes later. Its been a long run Dan, time to hang 'em up.

I think he was always a good anchor but the day of the space ship tragedy he was almost acting like he didn't know where he was. He was great and always told the news like a story your great-uncle or a grandfather would tell it. I think he should step down though because he now seems wonder aloud and tends not to have the old flow of talk with his guest analyst.

Man... I was just listening to Rather on our local NBC radio affiliate. He was interviewing a correspondent in Kuwait City, but he completely zoned out and started talking to, presumably, one of his assistants. The correspondent was trying to talk to him - "I'm sorry Dan, were you aking me a question?" And Rather was ordering some flunky to "double check that, yeah." Amusing stuff.

That said, let's hope they all come home safe.

"... I don't believe in damn curses. Wake up the damn Bambino and have me face him. Maybe I'll drill him in the ass..."

"Okay, a country has been attacked? Which one? Canada? No... Uh....Oregon? That's not a country? Sorry... Uh...Israel! That always gets attacked!...but not today? Fine. Uh...Canada?"

Rather's approaching J.R. levels of incoherence. He's probably a swell guy, and most of the time he probably provides solid coverage of smaller things, but when huge media events jump up...he drops the ball.

RIP Curt Hennig: Yeah, they call me a redneck, but you know---that's a beautiful thing!

You don't get it boy, this isn't a mudhole... it's an operating table. And I'm the surgeon. Something tells me to stop with the leg. I don't listen to it.But where in the world is there in the worldA man so extroardinaire?

Originally posted by Scott SummetsWhat was the Stern prank today and with Columbia?

Working from memory on the Columbia one, the guy called claiming to have debris in his backyward "that looked like Ba ba booey's teeth," and then he called Dan an "Idiot." Today he got on claiming to be one of the Iraq correspondents (I think it was Jim Axelrod) and called Dan an idiot again, which makes me think it's the same guy. Dan fumbled responding to it both times (I think on the Columbia prank he ADMITTED to being an idiot)

The days of "Ma'am this IS Walter Cronkite and you are a goddamned idiot" seem like they're far behind CBS.

-LS "I don't know if we can beat these bastards." "Maybe not, but we don't have to JOIN them."

Is Stern encouraging this BS? Pranking Rather during peacetime is one thing, but making light of of situations like these, where men and women are laying their lives on the line wearing the uniform of their country, our country... boils my blood.

"... I don't believe in damn curses. Wake up the damn Bambino and have me face him. Maybe I'll drill him in the ass..."

Originally posted by PalpatineWIs Stern encouraging this BS? Pranking Rather during peacetime is one thing, but making light of of situations like these, where men and women are laying their lives on the line wearing the uniform of their country, our country... boils my blood.

There's regular stupidity...and then there's wartime stupidity. Regular stupidity is usually remedied with a stiff boot to the ass. Wartime stupidity is remedied by shipping the stupid prankster off to wherever the troops are and making him fight alongside them.